Inside Garm's cabin, My measurements were being taken while outside, Rimuru was delegating tasks to shuna and the rest in order to facilitate the production of silk fabrics.
When I was led outside I found rimuru drawing some outfits with charcoal and wood, and suprisingly he drew a business suit for some reason, along with a few example outfits for men and women for the oni to wear.
"Very interesting," Shuna offered when he showed her. "I would be glad to try sewing some of these."
Rimuru decided that he'd go with something a bit more informal for himself—a light shirt and some pants. He wanted some kind of hoodie, along with outfit, but no way he could conjure up a zipper on this planet. For now, He had used Thought Communication to communicate the image of how it should look and feel to the relevant people.
With these orders placed, we all took our leave from the workshop, except Shuna.
Several days passed.
I had thought at first that Benimaru and the ogres might not get along so well with the village's people, but I guess I was proven wrong. To hobgoblins, ogres were a rank or two higher on the pecking order—but the goblins had the capacity to accept them as their own. And since ogres weren't too keen to pick on those who were weaker, they were practically worthy of worship as far as goblins were concerned.
With Kurobe making swords, Shuna sewing clothes, Soei gathering hellmoth cocoons, and Shion accompanying Rimuru in surveying the construction, Everyone was humming along, and that leaves myself, Benimaru and Hakuro. The three of us were down in the underground cavern, which I had told them about.
They acquired new abilities during their evolution and were testing them out. I was curious about thier strength and fighting style so I accompanied them in training.
"A rather nice place, this is. Quiet, too." commented Hakuro when we reached the underground cavern.
"It is indeed, I always train here, why don't we do a little spar first to test the waters? I missed the previous fight!" I suggested a brief spar to gauge thier ability.
"I'll take you on!" exclaimed Benimaru "I've wanted to let out some steam ever since I evolved."
We stood opposite one another, each of us holding a wooden blade. I decided to brush up on my zanjutsu skills since my sword will be made soon.
We started the spar by exchanging couple of probing moves without using any abilities. My physical strength was actually a little weaker than him, but I had the edge in our fight due to my slightly better reaction time and sword technique.
Feeling pressured, Benimaru started putting more energy in his strikes. pushing me back a couple of steps, I took this chance to mobilize my spiritual power, strengthening my body and coating the wooden blade. a faint light began to emit from fhe blade's surface increasing its striking power.
"Hah!, quite the skillful utilization of Battlewill sir Raiden." exclaimed Hakuro when he noticed my aura.
Battlewill, is that what they call this move here. looks like I'll have him explain Arts in more detail later, for now I continued with the spar, overwhelming Benimaru with my increased strength and speed. until he suddenly infused his sword with aura firing off projectile slashes at me which halted my offensive for a while, eventually though I manged to bypass his strikes with my movement technique reaching his position where I parried his sword to side during his wind up from the previous strike successfully ending the spar in my win.
I sparred with Hakuro next and suprisingly I was on the losing end, he was more skilled in swordsmanship than me, even if my strikes were stronger, he always manages to offset the power behind them to the side effectively preventing me from dealing any damage. and he is quite fast too having a move similar to flash step forcing me to use it continuously during our fight.
And suprisingly he manages to elude my senses sometimes when he moves out of sight, I nearly had his blade on my neck one time if didn't use flash strep right away.
Rimuru came carried by shion during the spar to check on us, and that signaled the end of our match in my loss if I am to be honest.
Hakuro was the first to notice him. "Ah, hello to you, Sir Rimuru," he said "A rather suitable place, this is for training."
"Hey Rimuru want to join in?" I asked
"Oh, no, no. I heard you were training, so I thought I would see how it's going. Doing well, I suppose?"
"I think we are coming to grips with this, yes," Benimaru said. "Hakuro's regained enough of his youth that he's as strong as a man half his age."
"Hoh-hoh-hoh! Indeed, it is as Lord Benimaru puts it. I can feel the power flowing into this withered old frame!"
"Ah, Dont belittle yourself, I am supposed to be stronger than you, remember, which should have been enough to win, but…" I lamented
Benimaru's face also visibly soured. I could tell that he imagined himself in my place now.
"Indeed, Sir Raiden I fear, however, that you rely upon your strength reserves too much. You seem unaccustomed to your techniques even though you appear to have mastered them"
"That right, I just got this body yesterday, I was used to fighting in a spiritual body before." I answered "but that doesn't decrease my recognition of your skills, Hakuro"
"Yeah, you lopped my arm off not long ago, didn't you?" Rimuru added. "If you don't mind my honesty, that threw me, man."
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! And then you regenerated it at a moment's notice! I believe I was the one nearing panic."
Well…that was true, he has utlraspeed Regeneration.
"I was pretty impressed with how you managed to completely hide yourself like that, though. How did that work?" asked rimuru which I was also surprised about during our fight.
"That is a Art known as Battlewill. It uses my aura, which places it in a different family of skills from magic."
As Hakuro put it, Battlewill was a unique sort of Art, or technical skill, that transformed the energy within oneself into fighting spirit, thus powering up the wielder's physical form. If one's aura is what comes out while you're not doing anything, fighting spirit is what you release while, well as he puts it, fighting—although given the definition of aura he speaks about, it is quite similar to me mobilizing my spiritual power in my physical body, it struck me that aura of fighting spirit is just spiritual power release.
There were a few other Arts, too. Instantmove, for one, which allowed exactly that which is similar to shunpo, or Formhide, which forced your opponent to lose sight of you. Modelwill, which strengthened your fists and weapons, was more of a beginner Art, and that was the white light I had just witnessed in my battle with Benimaru—they could fire it off like a projectile.
Given how anyone with the right level of intelligence could learn Arts, I guess the sight of ogres busting them out shouldn't have been a surprise.
If your garden-variety adventurer ever ran into a monster with that kind of arsenal at their fingertips… I couldn't guess how many unlucky souls met their ends that way.
This Battlewill thing, though, was interesting. I definitely wanted to learn about Formhide, which Magic Sense was apparently powerless against. I was open to some attacks back there because of it. As they put it, the Art begins by suppressing your sound, then your smell, then your temperature, then your spirit—and once you reach that level, you no longer even disturbed the magicules around you. ironically I can only suppress my spirit which is supposed to be the hardest part.
Definitely a skill I wanted to have.
"Lord Hakuro was our teacher," Shion explained, "and the most powerful swordsman among our retainers."
"Neat. So, Hakuro… I want to learn that Battlewill thing, and I'd like the hobgobs to get trained in it, too. Mind flexing your muscles some more for me as my official Instructor?" requested rimuru
"Hoh-hoh-hoh! You seek a favor from this decrepit old man?" He fell to one knee. "It gladdens me to hear! If it be for your sake, Sir Rimuru, I would be overjoyed to exert my weary bones one more time!"
"Sir Rimuru," Benimaru added, "you said you planned to build a nation in this land, yes? You were serving as king, and Rigurd as your top minister? I know nothing about government myself, but when it comes to military issues, I believe there are few who could equal me. If you wish to appoint me to a role along those lines, I would gladly accept it."
"Fine by me…but that's kind of a step down for you, isn't it?" asked rimuru
"Nothing of the sort. We serve you now, Sir Rimuru, and we have offered our loyalty. If I may fulfill this by serving as your vassal, then I would gladly put everything I can offer on the line."
"All right. I hope I can count on your strength, then."
Looks like rimuru finally began to accept his role as leader.
"That is terribly unfair! Sir Rimuru! If this is how it will be, I would like to be appointed to a post as well!"
Shion, still firmly holding rimuru up to her chest, was visibly pouting.